The Other Bed
by JBS-Forever
Summary: Dean doesn't let him sleep by the door.
**This is a one-shot that doesn't quite take place in the same universe mostly because the events don't unfold the same way they did in the show and quotes are referenced that were never said. But it happens around season 3. And...yeah...Just another one-shot that came to me in the early morning hours when I couldn't sleep. I don't really know what this is.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **?**

 **.**

 **.**

Dean doesn't let him sleep by the door.

It's always the same, no matter where they go. California, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Oregon. It doesn't matter. Each motel is the same. A blend of stained carpets and lipstick glasses and dirty sheets. Four walls, sometimes five, paint chipping or peeling or fading away. It's all the same. The only thing that ever changes is the name.

Sam didn't realize it when he was younger. He shared a bed with Dean up until he was old enough to find it uncomfortable, and by then his dad was away enough that it never really mattered, because his bed was always empty. But when Sam was still small, when he'd curl up next to Dean and kick their covers off in the middle of the night, Dean kept him on the side farthest away from the door.

It wasn't until years later that Sam realized Dean did it to him because John did it to Dean.

Say what he might against the way he was raised, but his dad was always doing little things like that. Giving them the bed away from the door, moving to the side of them when they crossed the street in case a car came through the light. All the small things Sam didn't pay attention to until his dad was gone and Dean picked them up. And even then, Sam didn't realize them until they were gone. Until the day he and Dean got in a fight and Sam walked away and didn't look back.

He slept that night in a room with one bed. The silence was deafening. He turned the TV on to drown it out and fell asleep to the sounds of some dumb movie Dean would love. But Dean wasn't there, and Sam felt it in his dreams. Heard the door creak and slip open, and woke with a start to find it closed.

Sam wasn't a baby. He'd spent plenty of nights without Dean. Hell, when he went to college he spent a long time sleeping alone until Jessica came along. And then, when she did, and they moved into an apartment together, he took the side of the bed closest to the door. He never let go of his instincts. He tamed them, learned not to jump at every sound, but they were never gone. So he walked along side her when they crossed the street, and he took the right side of the bed, and in the end none of it even mattered. He couldn't protect her. He couldn't keep her safe.

And when he realized Dean was doing the same thing he did to Jessica, the same thing John did to Dean himself, he couldn't _not_ think about it. Everywhere they went. Every motel, every house they squatted in, every cabin and cave and cavern – it was all the same. The only thing that ever changed was the name.

He left that lonely room at three in the morning and hot-wired a car and drove and drove and drove. He didn't need to ask Dean where he was. He knew. But he wouldn't go to him. Not yet, anyway. Not when the reason everything was going wrong was _because_ Dean was trying to protect him. " _You're my weakness, Sammy. And bad guys know it_." They did. Sam did. The whole world did. And until Sam could find a way to protect himself, he wouldn't sacrifice Dean. He'd sleep in the bed next to the door because it was only place he could be.

The thing about Dean, though, the thing Sam sometimes pushed away – pushed away like his instincts, but never quite forgot – was his ability to sense danger from afar. An ability Sam hadn't mastered yet, maybe never would. But to Dean it was second nature. So when Sam found himself alone at the back end of a hunt gone wrong, Dean was there, throwing his match into the open grave and catching Sam before he crumpled to the ground.

Always there.

Dean doesn't let Sam sleep by the door. Now, even as Sam lays on the lumpy mattress on the other side of the room, reflecting over this, he wonders how long Dean can go on trying to protect him. Trying to keep him away from danger.

"Here." Dean tosses him an ice pack and settles on the other bed, kicking his feet up and switching on the TV. The same movie Sam fell asleep to days earlier plays again. Dean stops to watch it.

They don't talk about the fight. They don't talk about the hunt, except for the brief moment earlier when Dean checked to make sure there were no more spirits that needed to be taken care of and checked to see if Sam needed a hospital. They don't talk about the way Sam's eyes had watered when they got back to the Impala and he'd melted into a blubbering mess. Dean blamed it on a concussion. Sam blamed it on that damn bed by the door.

The next day his throat is swollen from the ghost's fingers around his neck and he can't see out of his left eye and his head is pounding in tune with his heart. Dean brings him more ice and they pack up their things and leave the dingy motel behind.

They don't stop until they are two states over. Dean pulls them off into a little gas station and Sam stumbles out of the car to use the bathroom.

The door opens when he's washing his hands. He doesn't have the same sense of impending danger that Dean has, but he can read body language, and nothing says danger like a punch to an already bruised face. Two men, maybe three by the time things pick up. Sam's caught off guard, already weak from his previous beating, but he holds his ground until one of them slams his head into the sink and he drops to the floor in a dizzy heap.

And then Dean is there, yanking him to his feet, pulling him away from the bodies writhing around him. He blinks and tries to clear his eyes.

"Sam? You with me?"

"Yeah," he says, roughly. "Demons?"

Dean growls. "Hunters."

 _You're my weakness, Sammy. And bad guys know it_.

As Dean leads him back to the car, Sam thinks it won't be much longer. That soon he'll be in the bed by the door and Dean will be gone, fed up with trying to protect him, fed up with being a target.

"Why do you do it?" he asks.

"What?" Dean sits him down in the passenger seat and moves his hair back to look at the new wound. "They were beating the shit out of you, Sam. What else was I supposed to do?"

Sam doesn't tell him what he means. He throws up on Dean's shoes and slumps forward into waiting arms.

They take a break. Sam sleeps off his injuries, and Dean stays awake at night to watch him. Sam feels it in his dreams. The door is bolted shut. Nothing getting in or out.

He wonders.

When his head clears again, they find a lead on another case. It's a demon. The one they've been tracking through cities, watching it burn buildings to the ground. It takes Dean in the middle of the day during a routine hunt. In and out, Dean said. They'd be done before dinner. But nothing is ever that easy.

The demon pins Sam to the wall and leaves with Dean before they can figure out what to do.

And Sam is _pissed_ , because he knows Dean knew what was going to happen. For all the times he appeared out of nowhere, all the times he sensed danger, there was no way in hell he didn't know the demon was coming for Sam.

He's tired of it. He's tired of putting Dean in danger, of walking on the wrong side of the crosswalk, sleeping in the wrong bed. Dean doesn't need to protect him. _He_ needs to protect Dean. And running away isn't going to help. No, if Sam wants to be closest to the door, he needs to move toward it.

He tracks down the demon two hours after Dean is taken and offers him a trade. Himself for Dean. It's what the demon wants. It's what Dean knows the demon wants, too. The reason he's screaming at Sam now, telling him not to be stupid, to run, to get out. But Sam stands his ground because he's tired. He's tired of running.

The demon leaves Dean tied to a chair and takes Sam instead. Sam isn't worried, because Dean is a master of getting himself out of rope. He's had years of practice. He'll be fine. He's always fine. And as long as he can't find the demon, he'll stay that way.

It's Sam's turn to keep his brother safe.

He bites through the pain and the torture and gives into the demon's demands. Anything to keep Dean out of the line of fire. Anything to keep the demon off his trail.

And yet, just like Sam knows he will, just like he hopes he won't, Dean finds him again. He shoots the demon with the Colt, and as he unties Sam from the table he's locked to, he chews him out for being an idiot. Sam finds the strength somewhere beneath his aching bones to yell at him. To tell him he can't protect him forever.

Dean keeps a steady grip on him and smirks. "Watch me," he says.

And Sam finds himself melting again, limbs weary and strained, and Dean doesn't say anything about him crying, but he probably brushes it off to the torture Sam just suffered and he offers him a reassuring arm squeeze before he drives him to a clinic to get checked out.

When Sam wakes up later, Dean is sitting at his bedside, legs resting on his mattress as he dozes, keeping himself, as always, between Sam and the door. Always there. Always there.

Dean is always there.

Until one day, he's not.

And this time it's not a fight, and it's not college, and it's not a late night with their father as he waits alone in the motel room. It's Hell. It's a one year promise that Dean made to keep Sam safe. It's his life.

They fight till the end. They push off the Hellhounds and barricade themselves in a run-down room and Sam knows it won't last long because Dean is already blocking him from the attack, as if it's going to matter. As if the Hellhounds might change their minds and take Sam instead.

"What do we do?" he whispers.

"Nothing," Dean says. "We do nothing, Sammy."

"Dean – "

"You promise me," he says. "Promise me you won't do something stupid after I'm gone. Don't go looking for demons. Don't go chasing monsters. You get out and you run, you understand me? You run back to college and you live a normal life."

Sam swallows hard. He knows he won't. Won't even try. Without Dean there is no normal life. Just open doors and empty beds and crosswalks with cars racing through them. God, he's tired of running.

"Okay," he chokes out, because it's the least he can do for his brother after everything else.

The doors burst open and Dean scrambles back, away from the invisible forces Sam can't see. Sam tries. He tries to jump in front of Dean, to protect him while he can. To protect him one last time.

But it isn't enough. Nothing ever is.

Dean's eyes are open when he dies, and no matter what Sam does he can't get them out of his mind. He gets back to their motel room and tries to wash away the blood, but it's caked under his fingernails and it's stained on his hands and he can't breathe and he can't think and he can't feel anything.

He slams his fist into the bathroom mirror and it shatters. Just another motel. Four walls, paint peeling, dirty shirts and dirty glasses and dirty floors. They're always the same. No matter where they are. Nevada, Maine, Washington, Texas, South Dakota. The only thing that ever changes is the name.

Dean doesn't let him sleep by the door, but Dean is always there. Always protecting him, always keeping him safe.

And Sam will wait until the door opens again, and next time, when Dean takes that bed, Sam won't have to wonder anymore.


End file.
